Basically, for me, it all boils down to public choice theory. Once we’ve got a comprehensive national health care plan, what are the government’s incentives? I think they’re bad, for the same reason the TSA is bad. I’m afraid that instead of Security Theater, we’ll get Health Care Theater, where the government goes to elaborate lengths to convince us that we’re getting the best possible health care, without actually providing it.

That’s not just verbal theatrics. Agencies like Britain’s NICE are a case in point. As long as people don’t know that there are cancer treatments they’re not getting, they’re happy. Once they find out, satisfaction plunges. But the reason that people in Britain know about things like herceptin for early stage breast cancer is a robust private market in the US that experiments with this sort of thing.

The country that has the highest survival rate for breast cancer is Cuba.

Having been through the breast cancer mill three times, it’s amusing to hear such a robust defense of the incentive system for pharmaceutical development. It’s like the argument to fund the F-22 based on the value of commercial applications for the neat-o wing coatings that were developed. If that’s what we ultimately want, we should find a way to do that, and not prop up some Rube Goldberg model.

I am thinking of trying to raise $500 to go to Tester’s fundraiser in MT where Baucus is supposed to be. That would get two people in to the ”private” reception and 5 people into the barbecue. I’m ready to drive there.

Jane, this is OT but relevant. I’ve been looking at Mike Michaud’s (my Congressman’s) web page. There are quite a few recent updates re health care. See especially the letter (of July 9, also signed, eg, by Rush Holt) supporting a robust public option. This seems to fulfill the three requirements. Also, his op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, reprinted on the link. He’s saying that he wants to get health care right, which of course are words that can be used to weasel out with. But my very strong sense is that he’s not doing that, and that he might indeed be willing to “take the pledge”, ie say he won’t vote for a bill without a public option (he can vote progressive, eg he voted against the last supplemental). I contacted his office in several ways re this, but haven’t gotten a reply so far.

It’s not that I think that private companies wouldn’t like to cut innovation. But in the presence of even rudimentary competition, they can’t. Monopolies are not innovative, whether they are public or private.

Uh, who is proposing a “monopoly”? Would you like some more straw to stuff in that argument, Megan?

What is missing in her statement is the clarification of: a robust private insurance industry or a robust private hospital/research industry?

I was of the impression we had a robust non-profit hospital/research industry that experiments with this sort of thing? Not robust private insurance or private hospitals.

Does she realize the insult to the millions who raise funds for breast cancer research through well known non-profit research foundations? Those same non-profits publish their findings. She is full of bull.

Sorry, not signing any more petitions. Been there, done that. I VOTED, though, like hundreds of millions of others, for a public health plan. Not taking any more abuse via the “sternly worded letter” route.

Suggest a new line of attack, however: “BLUE CROSS DEMOCRATS” instead of Blue Dogs.

Public option be damned, you should all be advocating and agitating for nothing less than single payer UNIVERSAL health care, like we have in Canada. The simple fact is that there are enormous cost reductions in single payer that are not realized if you have government insurance competing with private insurance.

To use (appropriately, I think) a medical analogy:

If you were suffering from life-threatening intestinal parasites, would you trust a doctor whose first concern was to keep the parasites happy? Because it seems to me that’s what Dr. Congress is trying to do WRT the parasitic insurance industry.

I’m afraid that instead of Security Theater, we’ll get Health Care Theater, where the government goes to elaborate lengths to convince us that we’re getting the best possible health care, without actually providing it.

Health Care Theater, eh? By the definition provided, the part of government going to elaborate lengths to convince us we have the best possible healthcare would be the Republicans; even the Blue Dogs don’t go there.

As opposed to, say, the pundits who are going to elaborate lengths to convince us that the status quo is the best possible healthcare.

Today we have Health Care Theater in Obama’s town hall. If he any balls he’s be doing these town halls in the Blue Dog’s districts on recess when the Blue Dogs were home and invite them for a very public debate. But alas Obama is showing himself to be a coward.

I don’t know why people keep thinking Congress gets different health insurance than private citizens. It’s not free. Once a year they can initially choose a private plan or change plans if they already have one. This was discussed on Swim this morning. Yes, the taxpayers pay a portion of the premiums, just like people pay for part of the premiums for any employer based plan by purchasing the products the company makes. You too can have the High Option plan from BC/BS. If you can afford it.

As long as people don’t know that there are cancer treatments they’re not getting, they’re happy.

Thank you, Ms. McArdle, for pointing out the weakness in the “90% (or whatever percentage Rush said today) of Americans are happy with their health insurance” talking point. I didn’t know you were on our side in this.

Jane, you of course, are right and Megan is of course, wrong. She’s arguing that somehow the private sector has a patent on ingenuity. She is part of the propaganda machine that is trying to tell Americans that a private option is inherently better than a public option. Megan’s example of the Wal-Mart revolution in supply chain management is one of the reasons why our country is in such dire straits right now. She looks as this as a positive when in fact it is a negative. Wal-Mart was making profits long before they decide to squeeze the American worker out. Wal-Mart revolution has allowed companies to ship millions of jobs overseas which is why the middle class has been shrinking the last 20 years.

She argues that government researchers and pharmaceutical company researchers are different animals. Yeah, so? No one is getting rid of pharmaceutical company researchers. They will still be able to do exactly what they were doing before. A single-payer option does not eliminate them from the healthcare equation.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments on this issue. As a surgeon, I have written a lot on health care and health care issues — here.

There’s a bigger problem — the incidence of breast cancer is rising dramatically. It’s not because of the phase of the moon. But all the research money goes into treatment development rather than prevention because that’s where the profit centers are.

Trust me, you’d rather not have it in the first place. But we really should be putting more resources into finding out what is going on in the environment in the first place, and the whole fetishism of profits keeps us from doing that.